Feeding bees with liquid syrup has been done for many years, but most feeder designs have many problems. For example, the bees can become fouled with pools of open supplies of liquid feed when the liquid feed is being ingested. The sticky feed liquid can stick on the exterior of the bees, which can eventually disable and kill the bees. Also, it is not desirable to let the bees loose to feed on the open supplies of liquid syrup feed supplies.
Opening an existing bee hive, and pouring the liquid syrups into the existing bee hive can be difficult and even dangerous to others around the bee hive.
Using separate feeders has also been tried over the years, from using upside down jars of liquid feed supplies to separate boxes. However, these box feeders have not easily worked over time to control the access of the bees to the liquid supply.
Also, these box feeders are generally not adapted to be physically attached in a secure manner to the bee hives.
Additionally, many box feeders are formed from materials such as wood and cardboard, which renders the box feeders not reusable over time.
Additionally, storing and transporting the prior art box feeders are not able to be easily done since the prior art box feeders are not easily stackable for storage and transportation.
Top feeders have been attempted over the years that have problems. Top feeders have to be removed from the lid of the hive box in order to open up the hive box to allow for access inside of the hive box.
Other types of feeders must be placed inside of a hive box, which takes up space and usually requires another box to store the feeder inside. This arrangement requires both the lid of the box to be removed and the feeder itself to be removed in order to allow for access inside of the hive box.
Thus, the need exists for solutions to the above problems with the prior art.